


Gossip

by SharpestRose



Category: Marvel 1602, X-Men (Films)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-07
Updated: 2011-07-07
Packaged: 2017-10-21 03:33:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/220445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SharpestRose/pseuds/SharpestRose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"She was kidnapped, back when she were just nine summers old. Held for ransom, and when they got her back her hair had half turned white as the moon. Torture, I heard. Black magicks. That's likely what set her off wanting to suck the life out o' others, she needs it to keep herself from turning old the whole way through."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gossip

It's not hard to hear whispers, if you know the proper way to listen for them. Robert knew, he'd become extremely skilled in the art of catching quiet voices through necessity and self-preservation.

And gossip, well, gossip was the easiest sort of whisper to catch.

"Twelve doctors in only the last six months, and none ever back for a second visit. Had to be paid off, I heard. Blackmailing the family..."

"Her father can't get anyone to marry her, not even those of lower status. They say she's cursed..."

"Three maids gone in a year, two of them died of wasting and the third's gone mad...."

"If I didn't know better, I'd say she was another Countess Bathory..."

Nobody ever said _witchbreed_ , but it hung in the air on every breath and cadence. The Lady D'Ancanto was strange even by the standards of the court, and the small, busy nations of people in the kitchens and the laundries did not miss this irregularity.

Robert learned all he could from those who had learned the gossip from others, and sifted the wheat from the chaff by comparing the wilder of the stories to what was actually possible in reality. It was, for instance, wholly unlikely that the Lady Marie (she was not truly the feminine head of the family, for she was daughter of the Lord D'Ancanto, but as her mother had died some years before it had become common for the servants to think of her as their mistress) was four hundred years old; many of the older workers could remember the night she had been born some seventeen years earlier.

Robert watched and listened for more tales of this strange young woman who had set speculation off like wildfire, and taught the art of writing and reading to any who wanted it as an excuse to linger in the area. That was the curse of a journeyman's life, the dust never had a chance to settle on his well-worn boots before he was off again.

"Folk say she's got mandrake dew for blood, and that her skin shrivels you up like a poisoned draught..."

"She was kidnapped, back when she were just nine summers old. Held for ransom, and when they got her back her hair had half turned white as the moon. Torture, I heard. Black magicks. That's likely what set her off wanting to suck the life out o' others, she needs it to keep herself from turning old the whole way through...."

"Betrothed once, but the fellow heard the tales and took himself away to find another wife. Saved his life, I reckon..."

And then, one night, Robert sat listening to the evening chatter as the meals were being prepared and a young man with a sharp, foxlike face came and crouched close beside him, whispering

"If you make life more difficult for the Lady D'Ancanto than it already is, your head will find itself journeying away from your neck. Leave at once, and say nothing of the stories you've heard,"

before vanishing back into the smoke-filled recesses of the room.


End file.
